1980 Chihuly student William Morris Art Glass vase

Description: 1980 Chihuly student William Morris Art Glass vase height: 10 1/2 inches, width:
10 1/2 inches, depth: 3 1/2 inches. Absolutely no damage or wear whatsoever.
This vase represents his early work he was producing at Pilchuck while gaffing
for Dale Chihuly.

William Morris was born in Carmel, California in 1957. He is an American glass
artist who has been able to change the history of art within his lifetime.
Morris was educated at California State University in Chico, California as well
as Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington.  In 1978, Morris
arrived at the Pilchuck Glass School and found work initially as a driver.
Later, he worked with Dale Chihuly, the founder of the school, and eventually
became his chief gaffer in the 1980s. Morris remained with Chihuly for about 10
years as his chief assistant before deciding to form his own studio and develop
his own artistic style of glass blowing.

For more than twenty-five years, William Morris has captivated and intrigued the
art community with hauntingly evocative and beautiful glass sculptures. He has
captured the imagination time and again by creating objects that appear to be
ancient stone or woodcarvings, not the modern glass sculptures they actually
are. His art speaks of human origins, myth, ancestry, and ancient civilizations.
It symbolizes a harmony between humanity and nature and provides a ghost-like
bond to the world around us – a world that is often forgotten, ignored, and
abused.

Morris gathers much of his inspiration from ancient cultures from around the
world – Egyptian, Asian, Native American – all peoples who respected and admired
the land they inhabited. Because of this, Morris’s artwork has become something
all its own: culturally distinct and yet familiar to all cultures. His pieces
embody a spiritual quality that sharply contrasts old beliefs with those of the
modern world. These objects speak to our senses and continuously beg us to
explore them further.

Morris achieved much success during his career and retired in 2007. He spent
over twenty-five years honing his skills and pushing the medium of glass further
than anyone, including himself, could ever have imagined.

Morris’ work can be found in numerous public collections including:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Corning Museum of Glass, Corning,
NY; American Glass Museum, Millville, NJ; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art,
Hokkaido, Japan; Musee Des Arts Decoratifs, Paris, France; Auckland Museum,
Auckland, New Zealand and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England.